


Right Down To Your Soul

by shewho



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Accidental Immortality, Deal with a Devil, Hypothermia, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Self-Sacrifice, Soul Selling, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 07:49:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13783035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewho/pseuds/shewho
Summary: Once the fourth day passes on the banks of the Delaware, Caleb’s pretty sure that if Ben doesn’t wake up before sundown, he’s not going to wake up at all. Certain enough, in any case, that he starts to pray in earnest, something he hasn’t done foryears. Only it’s not God, or some saint who appears to answer his call...





	Right Down To Your Soul

**Author's Note:**

> It’s a little ramble-y, but then again, so is Caleb.

Over the course of his life thus far, Caleb Brewster has discovered only a handful of things that he truly, _truly_ hates.

British subjugators, certainly; tyrannical bastards, the lot of ‘em.

The way he’s seen aristocratic gentlefolk look at him and his family, his friends; that look which screams ‘ _You are not welcome amongst us_ ’.

Lying to said friends, as it leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

The palsy undoubtedly lurking deep within his limbs, the blight rotting the Brewster family tree from the inside out leaving no branch untouched.

Perhaps most ardently, he hates sailing with men who possess no skill as sailors, since the experience tends to be equal measures of aggravating and anxiety-inducing.

Case in point, the men currently upsetting the balance of his whaleboat. “Move back,” he chides with more than a little exasperation coloring his tone. The breeze whipping up off the water makes the night air colder than they’ve become accustomed to, and he’s in no mood to wet his feet tonight. “You’re tippin’ her.”

But he forgets: these men are not sailors, nor are they _his_ men, and as such they don’t hasten to follow his commands. A few budge up here and there but most ignore his instruction entirely, to their own detriment.

“Watch those arms,” Ben says as he stands from his perch beside Caleb, in the hard tone of authority he uses sparingly. “Grab that swivel gun!”

Only the men are slow to act – _the men are dolts, all of them_ – and the boat tips further, and Caleb’s a sailor not a miracle worker, for Christ’s sake; they’re going to lose one of the smaller cannons, if not more. Casualties of war, couldn’t be helped, sir.

Amid the commotion Ben takes a deep breath, and Caleb figures out exactly what he’s about to do a split second before he does it.

“Ben, no!” he shouts, even as the _absolute idiot_ flings himself out into the water after the swivel gun. “Ben!”

For one dumbfounded moment, he just stares after Ben before springing to action.

He’s not at all surprised to find that he’s the first to recover and react, is already at the edge of the gunwale with a firm grip on Ben’s wrist by the time he hears himself shouting orders to pull him aboard. Still, he’s only one man and Ben’d had a fair amount of momentum behind him when he went into the water; there’s little Caleb can do to stop Ben’s head from sinking beneath the surface, startling a shocked splutter from the man.

A surge of irrational anger spikes through him when not one, but _two_ of the men grab for the accursed firearms before they make any attempt to help retrieve their captain.

Doesn’t matter that Ben had declared _him_ captain; these are Captain Tallmadge’s men, and they comply with his command first and foremost. The last thing the captain had said before he hurled himself out of the boat was “ _Grab that swivel gun!”_ so grab it they shall.

“Damn,” Ben swears when his men finally lever him into the boat, hands and voice already beginning to shake from the cold. “Bit brisk, isn’t it?” Spitting river water back over the edge, he coughs roughly, wiping his mouth with one sopping sleeve.

Caleb shoves down the panic flaring inside him, dragging Ben closer with one hand and stripping off his coat with the other. “C’mon, off with these, all of ‘em.”

One of the younger voices pipes up from the bow, “Can’t that wait until we’re ashore?” and Caleb prays that one of the elder men has the decency to cuff this utter _child_.

If only he had a free hand, he thinks, he’d crack the boy across the mouth hard enough to make him bleed.

“No,” he snaps back instead, dragging the sodden coat off Ben’s shoulders with perhaps more force than necessary, “It can’t wait.”

It can’t wait because cold such as this can shock a man so badly he won’t ever fully recover. It can’t wait because this is the kind of cold that can close a man’s mind down completely, the kind that makes it near impossible to focus on anything other than just exactly how _cold_ it is.

It can’t wait because even in the dark, he can see the way Ben’s usually-steady fingers fumble with the buttons on his waistcoat, failing to properly unfasten a single one.

“C’mere,” he coaxes, undoing the long line of closures with ease and throwing the wet garment at their feet. Ben’s neckstock follows close behind, along with the soggy shirt underneath, peeled off so hastily that the seam under one arm nearly splits. Icy December air touches his skin, lifting steam.

“Boots off,” he instructs, snatching Ben’s previously abandoned blanket and wrapping it around his shaking shoulders. Ben’s hand lands heavy on his upper arm as he tries to keep from swaying in the softly rocking boat, fingers standing out white and bloodless against the dark leather of Caleb’s worn duster.

Caleb’s own hand comes to rest at the crest of Ben’s hip, steadying him as his lifts first one foot and then the other to tug off his boots without bending down. “These, too,” he says, brushing a thumb against the waistline of Ben’s pants, now stuck to him like a second skin, even tighter than usual. Ben nods numbly, his knuckles bumping Caleb’s as he reaches down to unfasten his breeches.

He’s seen Ben naked before, sure. Honestly, he’d be hard-pressed _not_ to have, considering the reality of their lives.

Along with most everybody they knew, he and Ben spent their childhood summers running wild and barely dressed. To see each of one’s boyhood friends in varied states of undress was nothing less than expected; Setauket was (and remains) a small town and they weren’t _Quakers_ , for God’s sake. The close quarters of university dormitories and whaling ships robbed them each of any remaining shreds of timidity long before they joined this army, though the war itself’s given them plenty more opportunities to shed their shyness.

Add that to the fact that Ben’s simply too candid for anything but the barest amounts of modesty and, really, it’d be nearly impossible for Caleb not to have seen his friend stripped down before this moment.

Despite the darkness, it’s clear that Ben’s contours are still much the same as he remembers, all taut and sinewy. His thighs have gained new muscle as a cavalryman, but otherwise he’s remained lanky in a way Caleb never recalls being. He’s still got the same broad shoulders that the reverend feared his son would never grow into, same tapered waist and incongruously delicate wrists. Long lashes still shade the same inquisitive eyes; thick brows still furrow in concentration and concern.

Where it used to be forever dotted with freckles his skin is now winter-pale from a chronic lack of sun exposure, too long hidden under the proper dress of an officer. Only his face and throat, and the backs of his hands hold even a hint that they’ve seen the sunlight this past year.

Ben still bears the crescent-shaped scar on his shoulder blade from where he fell out of one of Lucas Brewster’s apple trees the spring after he’d turned ten, and the long white one along the back of his arm which he _claims_ wasn’t an initiation rite of some kind at Yale (a lie Caleb is disinclined to believe), and the fading divot just beside his collarbone, courtesy of Robert Rogers.

All this, and he’s still equal parts pigheaded and headstrong. No, Benjamin Tallmadge hasn’t changed a lick since they were children, not really.

“Ben, why the hell’d you do that?” he bites out, exasperation and worry coloring his tone.

“They need the guns. I’ll be alright,” comes the weak reply, Ben’s voice descending into the same sloppy tone he gets when he’s drunk, all lengthened vowels and broken pronunciations.

“ _Ben_.” And it sounds like a reprimand, coming from his mouth as he tugs one long fold of the blanket up over Ben’s head to form an impromptu hood, blocking the worst of the wind, but it’s not. It’s concern, it’s a plea, it’s a near-feral panic clawing at his insides. It’s not a chastisement; he’s saving those for when Ben can process them properly. Oh, he’s angry alright – _of all the stupid, selfless shit the man could pull_ – but anger won’t get him anywhere, not when he needs to center his focus on keeping the shivering idiot in front of him alive.

“I’m not gonna die from a little dip in the river,” Ben mumbles, turning his face into the folds of the blanket, shuddering breaths cracking the words into barely understandable pieces.

Caleb’s jaw clenches. Water this cold _can_ be a death sentence, stealing the breath from men’s bodies and the life from their blood, but it doesn’t have to be. Voice harsh with poorly-concealed fear, he snaps at Ben, “You’re not gonna die _at all_.”

“Alright,” Ben acquiesces, ground out from between chattering teeth. “Alright.”

Something painful tightens in Caleb’s chest as he watches Ben try to pull the blanket tighter around himself, watches his hands – clumsy from the cold – fail to grip the material even as his knuckles whiten.

Without thinking, Caleb reaches out to catch Ben’s wrist, slides upward seamlessly until his fingers rest light against those clenched knuckles. “Ah, you’re fucking freezing,” he mutters, sweeping the rough back of his hand over Ben’s forehead. He ignores the almost irrepressible urge to yank Ben to his chest, hold him tight until he stops trembling so hard. Instead, he grabs Ben’s face, hand entirely covering one frigid cheek, fingers sinking into the damp hair curling softly at his nape.

Caleb lets loose a whistle to grab the men’s attention. “Oi, who’s got a blanket they’re willing to part with?”

Several men dig readily into their packs and offer up thick rolls of wool. Dragoons, as an unwritten rule, are never short of saddle blankets.

“Right, bundle him up as best you can,” he instructs. “Try not to leave too much skin exposed.” He watches as they begin collectively cloaking Ben in several layers of fabric that reek of horse, then makes his way to the prow.

“How is he?” one of Ben’s more senior men asks under his breath, pale brows crinkling with worry.

Caleb waves a hand flippantly. “Suppose it could still go either way, but he’s incredibly stubborn. He’ll pull through.”

A different faceless sergeant snorts before clearing his throat softly. “You’ve known him a long time, sir?”

“All my life,” he replies, even though it’s a lie. As the elder of the pair he’s known Ben for _Ben’s_ entire life, if not his own. “For years,” he elaborates. “Practically since I can remember.”

“And he’s always been like this?”

“What, a tenacious little bastard who’ll dig his heels in over anything?” Ben listens to no one, and nothing can stop him. Once he’s set his jaw and made up his mind, the hand of God reaching down from heaven couldn’t stop Benjamin Tallmadge in whatever quest he’s set himself on. “Yeah, he’s pretty much unchanged.”

Stubborn as a goddamn _mule_ , more like.

If he closes his eyes, he can picture the heated look Ben gives him whenever he’s about to do something particularly obstinate _perfectly_. It’s a disturbingly familiar expression, the same defiant blue stare which preceded punishment many times when they were children.

“Lieutenant Brewster?”

Caleb’s head snaps up at the sound of his name, and he’s back at Ben’s side in a few long strides. A chill curls along his spine as he drops down smoothly to rest on his heels. It’s not due to the cold wind whipping underneath the collar of his coat, though; it’s more about the marked lack of coherency is Ben’s eyes.

“Hey.” Caleb’s voice comes out harsher than he’d intended. “C’mon, ya dumb bastard.”

Caleb rests his hand on the back of Ben’s head, fingers weaving through wet hair. Tightening his grip, he uses the hold to pull Ben’s head back. Ben lets out a noise of protest in response, his eyes squeezing shut against the tugging. “Attaboy,” Caleb breathes, tapping the side of Ben’s face lightly to grab his attention. “Eyes here, yeah?”

 “It’s cold,” Ben says in a soft, strangled voice.

He’s not _wrong._ Despite how hard Ben’s clearly trying to hold himself still and silent, Caleb can hear his teeth clacking together. Even the soft lap of water against a hull magnified a hundred times over can’t drown out the sound of Ben’s chattering teeth.

Shivering’s a good sign, though, if he remembers his days hunting the Greenland whale with any accuracy. “C’mon, Benny,” he cajoles softly as he stands. “You jus’ stay down there in your blanket and we’ll getcha all thawed out in no time, hear me?”

Ben nods stiffly, his posture remaining as rigid as if he’d swallowed a stick.

“You’ll be alright,” Caleb says in something that’s half a promise and half a prayer. “Promise, Tallboy; you’ll be alright.”

The harsh body-shaking shivers segue rapidly into a finer, more contained trembling as Ben’s eyes start to blink open in lengthy, dazed movements. He leans his head against the outside of Caleb’s thigh, the wet hair at his temple leaving a corresponding patch of dampness that prickles in the cold breeze.

At first, Caleb’s certain they’ll hit the shore in short order.

Unfortunately, it seems they’ve all underestimated the size of this venture. Even though he can see the dark bank of the Delaware, the boat hasn’t moved any closer to the embarkation point since they’d first sighted the land.

As long as it took to loads the boats, unloading seems to take even longer. The men in his – _Ben’s_ – boat shift restlessly, but seem cowed enough to keep their seats.

Around them, men call between boats, reporting ice jams and other men who’ve gone overboard and Caleb can’t bring himself to care. He catalogues the information to deal with later and focuses the entirety of his attention on Ben.

If he doesn’t have something to focus on, his nerves are going to eat his brain.

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the concept for this fic was drawn from the principle of a though experiment known as “quantum suicide and immortality”, which is essentially the Schrödinger’s cat of life vs. death from the cat’s POV. Note that my understanding of quantum mechanics is EXTREMELY limited, so the fic actually has very little to do with the principle itself and more with the idea that someone/thing can be both dead and alive simultaneously, and how such a state might come to be.


End file.
